by Andy Clark
‘Your father,’ sighed Markos. ‘My oldest friend, should not be the only star you hunt by, Danial. He got himself killed because he was too damn noble for his own good. He could have dismounted.’
‘There wasn’t time,’ said Danial, defensive at the bitterness he heard in Markos’ voice. ‘Besides, the Code Chivalric demanded that he fight.’
‘You know that’s rubbish, Danial,’ replied Markos. ‘There wasn’t much time, but there was enough. He could have retreated with the rest of us. But High King Tolwyn, hero of the people, first High King of House Draconis? He couldn’t stomach the notion of ordering others to their deaths, especially in that fight out of all of them. Not after Gerraint’s brother. Not against Tan Chimaeros.’
Danial frowned and drew breath to ask what Markos meant, but the herald was still talking and the young king felt compelled to listen.
‘No, Tolwyn couldn’t leave his men to die in his stead, so instead he let the traitors kill him. And right before he did that, leaving his young, inexperienced son with the impossible burden of command, do you know what else my best friend did?’
Danial thought back to the bridge, and Markos’ Knight hesitating beside Tolwyn’s amidst the driving rain and pounding explosions.
‘He made you swear to protect me,’ said Danial. The images from his throne swam before his eyes once more, accompanied by the traitorous thought that perhaps he had never really known his father at all.
‘He made me swear to protect you,’ echoed Markos angrily. ‘Me, a sour old war dog who never whelped in his life. He was a good man, the High King, but in that he erred. You, your sister, Luk, you’re the closest I ever came to children of my own, and to my eternal shame, in the heat of the moment I underestimated you. Inexcusably so. I thought you were a bookish squireling, didn’t I? Clever, doubtless, and no idiot with a blade, but barely experienced enough to pilot your own Knight, let alone command an army of them.’
The herald barked a laugh, though the sound had little mirth in it. ‘Looks like I might have got you wrong.’
‘Not all the way, Sire Markos,’ said Danial with a slight smile. ‘And you’ve said and done all that you have with the noblest of intentions. I’m sorry that father left such an impossible burden upon your shoulders.’
‘Just another mistake of his that you shouldn’t have to apologise for, lad. My liege, I mean.’
The Knights were marching along the front line of the Imperial army now, the sight of the metal war gods raising wild cheers from amongst the ranks. Soon, Danial would have to address this army that he was about to lead, but he had a few moments yet.
‘I understand, Markos,’ he said. ‘But why do I feel as though part of you is still opposed to this attack?’
‘Because I don’t want you to throw your life away for the sake of honouring a man who didn’t deserve your sacrifice,’ said Markos.
‘I shan’t,’ said Danial firmly. ‘Though your counsel is valued, as always. I would hear more of my father and his history, as I’m sure Jennika would too. But for now, I am leading us into the valle electrum not for Tolwyn Tan Draconis but for the Emperor. And for the honour of House Draconis. And because I truly believe that it is the only way we can win this war.’
Markos was silent for a long moment, as their steeds thumped to a halt at the head of the Imperial army. At last he answered, and Danial heard a new determination in his voice, sweeping aside his weariness and resignation.
‘All right then. Yes. For the Emperor and House Draconis, and for High King Danial. Lead on, my liege, and let’s show these traitors how the draconsfire burns.’
‘As you say, Sire Markos,’ said Danial. ‘I am glad to have you at my side.’ With that, he took a deep breath and keyed his steed’s vox amplifier.
‘Knights of Adrastapol,’ he began. ‘Warriors of the Imperium. Now is the hour that we strike back against our betrayers. Before us lies a battle as hard as any of us has ever faced, but with the Emperor watching over us we cannot fail!’
Cheers rose from the assembled Imperial forces.
‘The enemy’s strength is great,’ said Danial. ‘Their weapons are fearsome. Many of you may feel doubt, even fear, at this prospect. But know, brave warriors, that we do the Emperor’s work this day. We walk in his light. His strength is our strength!’
More cheering, from soldiers sat high in their tanks’ cupolas, and from infantry massed beneath their fluttering banners.
‘Better yet,’ continued Danial as their confidence fed his. ‘Even as our faith and courage unite us, the enemy’s traitorous nature tears them apart. We go to war not against a single, determined foe, but a frenzied rabble! They will find that to turn their backs upon the warriors of the Emperor brings them nothing but a swift death. So take heart, soldiers of the Imperium,’ he cried, brandishing his Knight’s chain blade and revving its cutting edge with an industrial roar. ‘Today we march upon our enemy’s stronghold and cast it down in flames. Today we take revenge for our countless fallen. Today, we hurl down our heretic foes and claim victory in the name of the Emperor!’
This time the cheers rose from the Imperial lines like the roaring of ocean waves, breaking across Oath’s hull without cease.
‘A fine speech, High King,’ crackled Sheik Halna’sir’s voice over a private channel. ‘My warriors are prepared, and the Imperial Navy stand ready to play their part. All wings have been pulled back into orbit for repair, refuelling and rearmament.’
‘Thank you, sheik,’ said Danial, half of his attention on the conversation and the other on the warriors readying for battle all around him. The moment to attack was nigh. ‘We will do everything we can to knock out their flak defences on the way in. Please inform the air marshal that his craft will have a clear corridor all the way to the generatorums, as soon as we have eliminated the source of the scrapcode. I swear it upon the draconsfire.’
‘As the Emperor wills it,’ came the sheik’s reply, and Danial heard a fierce grin in the man’s voice. He hadn’t met Halna’sir in person, and had only seen him from a distance during Tolwyn’s final briefing, but he found himself with a great deal of respect for the man. The sheik’s actions after the betrayal had been decisive, his leadership unwavering and his choices sound. Now he was going to lead the Astra Militarum infantry into the breach in person with sabre drawn, a gesture that spoke to Danial’s throne-enhanced sense of honour.
‘Wield the draconsfire, sheik,’ said the young king.
‘And may the Emperor watch over your road,’ came Halna’sir’s response. ‘Hunt well, Danial Tan Draconis.’
With that, the sheik cut the vox link, and Danial flexed his haptic gauntlets in readiness.
‘Warriors of the Imperium,’ he boomed through his steed’s amplifiers. ‘In Excelsium Furore! Advance!’
Like an iron tide, the Imperial forces rushed towards the mouth of the nortus maximal. The Astra Militarum forces drove in behind a concentrated spear tip of armour, while the Adrastapolian Knights advanced in their midst to provide fire support. As they came into range, the waiting enemy opened fire. Oath of Flame strode towards the enemy lines with shells exploding all around, and Danial was reminded of that first, glorious charge just days earlier. Before betrayal. Before loss.
‘Forward,’ he roared into the vox. ‘Forward for Adrastapol and the Emperor! Sires, ladies, fire at will!’
His Knights cheered in reply, and let fly with the full fury of their steeds’ weaponry. Howling storms of gatling fire chewed through ferrocrete strongpoints, collapsing stonework already weakened by bombardment. Missiles leapt away on trails of flame, spearing into the midst of the enemy. As his steed pounded closer to the outer defences, Danial saw small figures dashing frantically along fire steps, directing gun batteries and portable heavy weapons at the Imperial forces. What must it be like, he thought, to face such a gathering of metal gods, all shaking the ground as they charged?
As the firestorm intensified, Danial kept part of his attention upon the s
trategic overlay while listening to the timely whispers from the ghosts of his throne. Danial’s ancestors no longer overwhelmed him with their advice, but instead offered counsel with respect and restraint. He dared to hope that they and he had reached an accord, but whatever the case the patterns of battle stood out to him with more clarity than ever.
‘Sire Wallian, Lady Eleanat, suppression fire upon the bunker complex at mark point-two-seven. Lady Jennika, have your lance draw fire from the Cadians if you can – Kovash’s transports are taking punishment. Gallants, mass on Sire Percivane and turn your advance to mark point-three-one-one. With that battery down there’s a gap in their fields of fire. Make me a breach.’
Responses chorused back to him. Still he watched anxiously as the Imperial forces approached the edge of the Adamant Citadel’s projected engagement zone. To the young king’s surprise, its ferocious bombardment failed to materialise. Leman Russ battle tanks churned up fans of mud as they sped towards the heretic fortifications, firing shot after shot. Shells sailed overhead from artillery in the Imperial rear lines. And still no missiles rained down from beyond the mountains.
‘So much for their vaunted Adamant Citadel,’ came Jennika’s voice over the vox.
‘Something must have happened to it,’ said Danial as shots splashed from his ion shield. ‘That or they’re luring us into another trap.’
‘Too late for such thoughts now, brother,’ said Jennika. ‘We’re committed.’
‘That we are,’ said Lady Suset. ‘Thermal cannon in range, firing now. Die, you murdering traitors!’
Her shot went through the armoured front of a bastion and brought the structure down in an avalanche of melted plasteel, rumbling stone and screaming militiamen. Following her lead, Danial opened fire into an armoured battery flanking the felled bastion. Superheated energies engulfed the structure, blasting its exposed gunners to ash in a heartbeat before cooking off the weapon’s magazine in a spectacular fireball.
‘Breach at mark point-two-four,’ reported Danial as the smoke cleared from the blast.
‘Breach at mark point-three-one-one,’ came Sire Percivane’s voice a moment later. ‘We’re through their forward positions.’
As the Knights kept firing, Commander Korgh led a headlong charge to claim the nearest breach. Several hundred Imperial Guardsmen ran at his heels, firing lasguns from the hip and banners flying proudly. Desultory fire fell amongst them, but the enemy had been battered and shell-shocked, and Korgh led his attack home with unwavering courage. Within minutes, the Imperial banners were hoisted high above the scorched remains of the enemy fortifications, and more loyalist forces poured through the breach to engage the secondary defences located deeper into the pass. The story was the same all along the line, the last of the traitors fleeing in panic or dying, bottled up in their strongpoints with nowhere left to run. Danial touched his fingertips to his grandfather’s amulet for a moment, and allowed himself a fierce smile of victory. At long last, the war was turning in their favour.
The first enemy defence line had fallen, but further strongpoints remained. Two narrower lines of defences were strung across the heart of the pass, along with numerous fortifications dug into the jagged flanks of the mountains themselves.
‘We’re losing our artillery cover from here on in,’ Danial voxed to his Knights, ‘and the Astra Militarum can accompany us no further. We fight alone from here.’
There had been no time for Polluxis to work his data-wards upon the Imperial Guard war machines, and no guarantee that they would have shielded their more primitive machine-spirits. Until the Adrastapolians silenced the scrapcode, they would fight unsupported.
‘We don’t need them anyway, my liege,’ said Sire Federich Dar Minotos, full of bravado and determination. ‘We’ll smash a path through these filthy traitors the old fashioned way. For the grandmarshal.’
‘For the grandmarshal,’ agreed Danial. ‘And all our fallen. Gallants and Errants at the fore, Wardens and Crusaders concentrate on the fortifications’ biggest guns. Paladins watch our flanks, and knock out any strongpoints you locate in the valley walls. Knights of Adrastapol, for the Emperor, advance.’
Danial felt the mingled elation and fear of command race through him as he spurred his steed into the front ranks of the attack. Feel them, whispered his ghosts, but control them. Control is the mark of a true leader. Ahead, the second defence line lit with a furious storm of muzzle flare as the heretics opened fire upon the Adrastapolians.
Luk’s voice came through on a private channel, mocking but also more than a little rueful. ‘Do I have to call you “your highness” too, your highness?’
Despite the storm of firepower battering at his shield, Danial couldn’t help a grim smile.
‘You more than most, Knight of Ashes. Show some respect.’
Luk snorted.
‘Such uncouthness, and from the High King no less. I’d sooner show these bastard traitors some fury. Together?’
‘Together,’ said Danial. ‘Just like always.’
‘For Adrastapol!’ roared Luk, moving into a loping charge.
Danial took up the cry, and all around him the other Knights did the same. The flanks of the mountains loomed above them as they charged, lit by the flicker of lights and the flare of explosions. Shells and plasma blasts rained down upon the Knights, hammering their ion shields as they closed with the enemy defence line. Danial’s retinal display lit up with damage markers, runic signifiers flickering to amber then red as weapon limbs were wrecked, armour rent and systems burned out, but the Knights attacked without hesitation. Before him, the traitor defences were wreathed in smoke and flame. Towers collapsed in sheets of rubble. Generator blocks exploded, overloading weapons batteries, which blew apart in turn and took their terrified crews with them. The scale of the devastation unleashed was breath-taking, the clamour of war magnified to an apocalyptic tumult in the confines of the pass.
Danial’s shield glowed and his steed took hits; an auspex receptor shattered; an armoured greave was torn and dented. He kept aiming and firing even as he watched the strategic overlay and his comrades’ status manifolds. The flood of information would have cooked an unaugmented brain in minutes, but Danial Tan Draconis was a son of kings, with a mind as sharp as a whetted blade. He thrived on the flood of information.
A line of shells stitched Oath’s damaged greave, prompting amber alert runes to flash and electromuscle bundles to spasm. Danial compensated for the lurch in his Knight’s stance, sidestepping the next volley and obliterating the offending gun turret with a roaring thermal blast.
Seamlessly, Luk charged Sword of Heroes into the resultant breach, swinging his Knight at the waist-gimbal to carve his reaper chainsword along a fortified fire step. Blood sprayed as heretics were churned to crimson mist, but Luk wasn’t done. Sparks flew as the Knight arrested its blade-swing with a scream of overstressed servo-motors. Revolving his blade, the Knight of Ashes carved the weapon straight down, through the fortified wall before him, ignoring the small arms fire sparking from his hull. Ferrocrete parted in a fountain of rubble, and Luk bulled his armoured steed straight through the gap. Weakened, the wall gave way, and the heretics bellowed in terror as they were crushed underfoot or swept away by the avalanche of ruin.
‘Breach,’ shouted Luk over the vox-net. ‘Mark point-seven-three.’
Danial felt his friend’s satisfaction as he strode Oath of Flame through in the Sword’s wake. Heretics and mutants fled in terror from the ironclad deities looming over them. Danial looked down without pity, and then, along with Luk Kar Chimaeros, he opened fire.
With the breach secured, a single defence line remained. Sporadic fire rattled down from bunkers set into the ravine walls above, but Sire Garath led the most accurate Knights in sniping them one by one. Danial gathered his warriors before a sharp bend in the valley. Here they were shielded from the final line of enemy guns by the jutting immensity of the mountain’s feet. They caught their breath, checked their ammunition
counts, and allowed Polluxis’ Crawlers to repair and re-arm them from the Sacristans’ dwindling stores.
‘Sires and ladies of Houses Draconis, Pegasson and Minotos,’ said Danial as the Sacristans finished their work. ‘Let us sweep aside the final obstacle, and carry our wrath into the heart of the enemy’s fastness!’
The vox filled with rousing battle cries, and with a roar of generators and a booming of ironclad footfalls, the Knights of Adrastapol rounded the bend and bore down upon the last, thin line of heretic defences.
The traitors never stood a chance. Though they put up a desperate fight, many abandoned their posts and fled rather than face the Knights’ wrath. The Knights easily shrugged off the panicked fire of those who remained, and in a matter of minutes the towers were toppled, the guns silenced, and Danial’s warriors were through the last line of defence.
Yet their cries of victory were silenced as they strode to the mouth of the ravine and gazed out at the sprawling, war ravaged city. The valle electrum spread out before them, surrounded by looming mountainsides thick with pipework and habs, dotted with rising columns of smoke and flame.
‘Quite a sight,’ breathed Sire Olric.
‘There are the generatorums,’ said Danial, blink-clicking designator runes over the distant trio of huge structures. ‘But what in Throne’s name is that?’
A roiling column of energy was rising from the heart of the city. It roared upwards like a never-ending river, as wide as a drop keep and churning with all the colours of madness, to spread in a monstrous, pulsing thunderhead.
‘Danial,’ voxed Jennika. ‘I don’t know what that is, but it’s wrong on every level. It must be. We have to stop it.’
Perhaps Gerraint Tan Chimaeros had known about whatever heresy was occurring here. Perhaps he had not, but if Danial had ever harboured any lasts shreds of sympathy for the man, they fell as ashes before such obvious heresy.
‘Knights,’ he voxed grimly. ‘This is the truth of Gerraint Tan Chimaeros’ rebellion. For Adrastapol, we end this now.’